Now that we've played several games of Shooting the Moon I'd like to talk about one of the adjustments we've made.(*)

The game text would have us assign Suitor 1, Suitor 2, and Beloved the very first thing. We've tended to choose a little later, either:

• shortly after the Beloved is created (before any traits are assigned to the suitors). This means that as the suitor-traits are being assigned we know which player is receiving them.
  
• right after the main suitor traits are assigned (but before the "...but _____" blanks are filled in).
  

The main downside to the latter approach is that it makes the very first suitor-trait-assignment mostly-meaningless -- just pick a synonym/antonym pair, and stick it arbitrarily on the suitors. I was wondering if we could alleviate this without giving up the benefits of having players assigned to the suitors later in the process. I feel like when we assign suitors later there's more of a sense of shared ownership when we do so much of the creation before any one person owns the character.

Thoughts? Is it just me who really likes leaving the suitors unassigned as long as possible? I was thinking maybe next time I play I'd have the beloved player chosen immediately after the six Beloved traits are created, and then that player can handle the arbitrary first choice-of-traits; might that help?

(*) the other adjustments are about streamlining to fit into a 3-4 hr slot and I don't have any interesting things to say about them.

I've only played it with late assignment, but I think it's very much in the spirit of the game: it's the dynamic between the characters that matter, not their personality in isolation, so building them together seems an excellent fit.

I'm not bothered by the first pick being meaningless. If you do it the other way and know whose suitor is whose, that first choice is almost too strong: you're picking any pair you want and unilaterally assigning to people. This way players get to look at the character that has emerged and discuss which they'd rather play.

(also I think the intention as written is to pick suitors/beloved before starting -- even though I'd rather not -- but I can't actually find a rule that says when the decision is made)